Former Chinese Defector Sentenced to Eight Years Prison in China

Jia Jia was arrested at Beijing Capital International Airport on Oct. 22, 2009. The photo was taken before he boarded the airplane in New Zealand. (The Epoch Times)A former high-level Chinese official and outspoken critic of the Chinese regime, who defected from China in 2006 and was granted political asylum in the West, later chose to return to China, and has now been sentenced to eight years in prison there.

On Oct. 22, 2006, Jia Jia, the former Secretary General of the Science and Technology Experts Association of Shanxi Province, gave up his influential position and life in China and walked off from a tourist trip in Taiwan, to ask for political asylum. He had with him a name list of over 700 people who had declared their withdrawal from the Chinese communist party (CCP).

Jia Jia said the reason for his defection was to promote Chinese democracy overseas.

After failing to obtain political asylum in Taiwan, Jia Jia briefly stayed in Hong Kong where he attended a press conference on Oct. 27 and publicly declared that he was breaking all ties with the CCP. He also called on the international community for support.

Jia Jia was granted political asylum by the United Nations on Sept. 25, 2007 and permanent residency on June 26, 2008 in New Zealand, where his son was already living at the time.

But fifteen months later, Jia Jia decided to return to China.

Before boarding a Beijing-bound airplane on Oct. 22, 2009, Jia Jia left a letter for The Epoch Times in which he said: “I am returning to my homeland because I want to encourage and urge our CCP members, cadres, soldiers, military police, public and state security officers, and all Chinese people from all ethnic groups to bravely step forward and together overthrow the tyranny, to achieve democracy in China … I will directly face the totalitarian Chinese communist regime, the most vicious and brutal one in human history.”

Upon his arrival at the Beijing Capital International Airport, Jia Jia was immediately arrested.

Jia Jia’s son, Jia Kuo, did not hear from his father until recently, when a relative in China told him Jia Jia was sentenced to eight years in prison and two years deprivation of political rights.

Kuo said that his father’s decision to return to China was indirectly caused by the CCP’s insidious psychological persecution of overseas dissidents through spies that “destroys a person without shedding blood.” Both father and son experienced this persecution firsthand, including being followed and threatened with death, he said.

“They threatened me with death,” Kuo said. “A spy once said to me: ‘Jia Kuo, you are in grave danger if you continue like this. You know there is a Falun Gong practitioner in Thailand with last name Zhang, who was killed in a car accident. If you continue to do these things, you will end up like him.’ Many people said similar things to me.”

Once someone drove closely behind him and followed him home, and one time his car was smashed after he published an article, Kuo said.

“When my dad was taking an English class in New Zealand, one of his classmates often threatened him, saying if he carried on like this [exposing the CCP’s sinister deeds] he would not be able to return to China, and he would meet with a bad end,” Kuo said.

Kuo said the CCP’s spies use various means to create tremendous mental stress for overseas dissidents, causing some to suffer temporary abnormal mental conditions. He said two years ago, he began feeling very uncomfortable physically, and his mind was not very clear. He also suffered from sleeping disorders.

His father had similar symptoms, although to a lesser degree, and could not concentrate, Kuo said. The constant stress was affecting their health, especially their mental/emotional condition, and made it impossible for them to work and study normally.

“We could not live a normal life. This was one of the reasons why my father returned to China,” Kuo said.

Naturally, the recent sentencing of his father in China didn’t come as a big surprise to Kuo since Jia Jia had called on CCP members to quit their party memberships and had participated in many overseas democracy activities.

“These are all reasons for him to be sentenced in China,” Kuo said . “But what my father did are things that can be done in free countries and are all in accordance with international law. He did not do anything illegal.”

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